The History of Terrorism In India

I. INSURGENCY IN NORTHEAST INDIA

The Insurgency in Northeast India is an ongoing armed conflict in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Nagaland, which began in the 1950s, between various militant groups belonging to separatist, Christian nationalist and communist ideologies, and the Indian government. The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was founded in 1979 and sought an independent Assam, free from control of New Delhi, which they regarded as “colonial”. Between 1990 and 1991 alone, the ULFA killed 97 people, including the Congress Secretary General of Assam. This led the Indian Army to launch large-scale counter-insurgency operations - which included Operation Bajrang (1990) and Operation Rhino (1991). In 1991, a Soviet engineer was kidnapped and later killed by the ULFA, and in 1996, the terror organization killed 13 armed security personnel across three separate attacks. Many high-ranking politicians, and railway and public infrastructure, were also targeted by militant terror groups, including the ULFA, Naga National Council (NNC), and National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN). The insurgency was further supported by China, which provided direct support for the separatist group for nearly 15 years. This support began when the Naga National Council first established contact with Chinese officials in Yunnan province. By the mid-1990s, both the NSCN and ULFA Chief of Staff Paresh Baruah had secured Chinese arms shipments via Bangladesh. Major incidents include the Mandai Massacre (8th June 1980), orchestrated by the Tripura Insurgent Groups, resulting in the deaths of 500 people, and the assassination of AGP Minister Nagen Sarma by the ULFA in 2000. The Special Session of the 13th Lok Sabha 9

II. INSURGENCY IN PUNJAB (KHALISTAN MOVEMENT)

The Insurgency in Punjab was an armed conflict spearheaded by the separatists of the Khalistan movement from the mid-1980s to the 1990s. The movement gained significant traction after the rise of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale alongside his supporters from the Akal Takht, who actively mobilized secessionist sentiments from the Sikh community, leading to Operation Blue Star in June 1984. This was an armed military operation to purge and drive out Bhindranwale and his supporters from the Golden Temple, resulting in widespread civilian casualties, unrest and desecration of the temple. Following this, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984, and the consequent anti-Sikh riots resulted in the deaths of over 2700 Sikhs. The primary armed organizations, including the Khalistan Commando Force, Babbar Khalsa, Khalistan Liberation Force, and Khalistan Zindabad Force, were actively supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) both monetarily and militarily. This was done via the establishment of military training camps and deployment of the Field Intelligence Units along the India-Pakistan border. Terror attacks such as the 1991 Punjab killings and the Rudrapur bombings led to the deaths of over 150 people. The principal perpetrators were identified as the Khalistan Commando Force and the Bhindranwale Saffron Tigers of Khalistan. The cruel assassination of Chief Minister Beant Singh by a suicide bomber in 1995 is yet another key attack which took place during this time period

III. ASSASSINATION OF RAJIV GANDHI, 21 MAY 1991

The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, occurred as a result of a suicide bombing in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on 21 May 1991. The crux of the attack lay in the deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka in 1987, and it was drawn into an armed conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the Sri Lankan Civil War, rather than upholding its original peacekeeping vision. The Special Session of the 13th Lok Sabha 10 The LTTE's decision to eliminate Gandhi was further fueled by his aspirations to deploy the IPKF back to Sri Lanka, provided he won the 1991 Indian general elections. At least 14 others, in addition to Rajiv Gandhi and the assassin, were killed. This operation was carried out by 22-year-old student Kalaivani Rajaratnam (popularly known by the alias Dhanu), a member of the banned Sri Lankan Tamil separatist terror organization - the LTTE. Terror organizations had discovered their most devastating weapon was not the bomb itself, but the young hands willing to carry it. The dispossessed and the youth do not deter terrorism; they accelerate it. The assassination left Rajiv’s widow, Sonia Gandhi, politically isolated. She refused to enter public life until 1998, when she assumed the presidency of the Indian National Congress.

IV. THE BOMBAY BOMBINGS, 12 MARCH 1993

The 1993 Bombay Bombings were a series of 12 terrorist explosions in Mumbai, Maharashtra, on 12 March 1993. The demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya served as the ideological precursor and ignited brutal waves of communal riots across the country. The attacks were orchestrated by Dawood Ibrahim, leader of the international narcoterrorist crime syndicate, D-Company. Investigations led by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Indian intelligence forces revealed that a series of meetings had been organised in Dubai, attended by ISI agents, Anees Ibrahim and Tiger Memon, during which Pakistan’s ISI offered Dawood logistical support, asylum and military-grade explosives, in exchange for using his network of corrupt customs and police officials to traffic RDX and weapons into Mumbai. Confessions by multiple operatives later disclosed that at least 15 conspirators underwent training at camps run by the ISI, near Obra in Pakistan’s Punjab province, between the months of January and February 1993. Several Indian customs officials and police officers were found to have accepted substantial bribes to allow consignments of RDX and military-grade weapons to be transported to India via its coastline. On 12 March 1993, between 1:30 PM & 3:40 PM IST, a total of 12 bombs exploded throughout Mumbai, with the The Special Session of the 13th Lok Sabha 11 first bomb exploding in the basement of the Bombay Stock Exchange building. By the end of the day, 257 people had been killed, and over 1400 injured, cementing it as the deadliest single-day terrorist attack on Indian soil. The then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar, later admitted on record that he had deliberately misled the public about the number of explosions and had falsely added the name of a Muslim-dominated locality to promote the notion that both the Hindu and Muslim communities had been equally impacted. He further misled the public into believing that the attacks may have been the work of the LTTE, but in actuality, the perpetrators were Dawood Ibrahim and the D-Company.

V. THE COIMBATORE BOMBINGS, 14 FEBRUARY 1998

The 1998 Coimbatore bombings occurred on 14 February 1998 in the city of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. The immediate precursor to this incident was the Coimbatore riots, which occurred a year before in 1997 in the months of November-December, during which Hindu fundamentalist groups killed 18 Muslims along with 2 Hindus. This was a culmination of the murder of a local police constable by a member of the radical Islamist group, Al-Ummah. On 14 February, 13 bombs detonated across 11 locations in Coimbatore, between 1:30 PM and 3:40 PM IST, resulting in the deaths of 58 people and injuring over 200 others. Subsequently, investigations revealed that three suicide bombers had been deployed to specifically target senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani at his rally, who narrowly escaped due to a flight delay. Afterwards, judicial indictments concluded that several state and central intelligence agencies were warned about an imminent attack, but this had been disregarded by local authorities.

VI. HIJACKING OF IC-814, 24 DECEMBER 1999

The Indian Airlines Flight 814 was hijacked on 24 December 1999 by five armed operatives of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen - Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Mistry, and Shakir. The The Special Session of the 13th Lok Sabha 12 hijackers used the codenames Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola, and Shankar, respectively, to refer to themselves. The aircraft, carrying 190 passengers, departed from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, for New Delhi. The plane was forced to land at Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai, until its final arrival in Kandahar, Afghanistan (then under Taliban control). The hijackers demanded the release of 36 terrorists held in Indian jails, the handover of the body of a slain Harkat-ul-Mujahideen commander and a cash payment of $200 million. However, after prolonged negotiations, the demands were further narrowed down to the release of 3 highly valued prisoners - Masood Azhar (founder of the Jaish-e-Mohammed), Omar Sheikh, and Mushtaq Zargar. Senior Indian intelligence operative and negotiator Ajit Doval later remarked that the hijackers were receiving continuous support from Pakistan’s ISI throughout the tense standoff in Kandahar, with two ISI officers perpetually being present and offering a safe route for escape. On 27 December, the Indian government sent a four-member negotiating team to Kandahar, including top officials such as External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh (facilitating the exchange of hostages), Ajit Doval, C.D. Sahay, and Vivek Katju. On 31 December 1999, Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh, and Mushtaq Zargar were released in exchange for the hostages. This led to widespread controversy and catastrophic repercussions; within weeks of his release, Masood Azhar addressed a crowd of an estimated 10,000 supporters in Karachi, declaring that Muslims would not rest until India was destroyed. He subsequently found Jaish-e-Mohammed. While the aircraft was stationed on the tarmac in Amritsar, the Crisis Management Group failed to operate successfully and deploy the NSG commandos in time, neglecting the possibility of the aircraft departing without being refuelled, and thus enabling the hijackers to take flight relatively unopposed. India’s National Security Advisor and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s key troubleshooter, Brajesh Mishra, later recounted on record "the first mistake was committed in Amritsar". A letter dated 27 September, 1999, submitted to a government secretariat, later resurfaced, explicitly warning that Pakistani operatives were planning to hijack an Indian Airlines plane departing from Kathmandu within the coming few months. However, the letter was grievously overlooked and forgotten, leading to a critical failure in the Indian intelligence ecosystem and framework. The Special Session of the 13th Lok Sabha 13

VII. RED FORT ATTACK, 22 DECEMBER 2000

The attack on the Red Fort took place on 22nd December 2000 in New Delhi. To attack the Red Fort was to attack the Indian identity itself. It was a direct assault on Indian sovereignty and was carried out by the Pakistani terrorist group, the Laskhar-e-Taiba. At approximately 9:00 PM IST, two armed LeT operatives breached the symbol of Indian independence, killing two armymen of the 7th Rajputana Rifles and one civilian security guard before successfully escaping without being apprehended. The media described the attack as an open attempt to derail the India-Pakistan peace talks.

VIII. JAMMU & KASHMIR LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ATTACK, 1 OCTOBER 2001

The attack on the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly complex, occurring on 1 October 2001, was a direct onslaught on a symbol of Indian democracy. At about 2:00 PM IST, one hour after the closure of the session, a vehicle laden with explosives was rammed into the entrance by a Jaish-e-Mohammed operative, leading to its detonation and the deaths of 38 people and wounding approximately 70 others. No lawmakers were killed, and several senior leaders had departed the premises earlier. The JeM, founded by Masood Azhar, who was released just 2 years earlier, publicly claimed full responsibility for the attack, naming Wajahat Hussain as the suicide bomber.